THE CORRELATION BETWEEN READING INTEREST AND READING COMPREHENSION OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMPN 1 SUKAWATI IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2021/2022

The study aims to find out whether there is any correlation between reading interest and reading comprehension of the eighth-grade students of SMPN 1 Sukawati. The problem of this study was: is there any significant correlation between reading interest and reading comprehension of the eighth-grade students of SMPN 1 Sukawati in Academic Year 2021/2022? The population of this research consist 400 students from the eighth-grade students of SMPN 1 Sukawati in academic year 2021/2022. The samples of this study are 39 students which were taken by cluster random sampling technique. The data were collected from questionnaire about reading interest and a multiple choice for reading comprehension which were collected online via Google form and Whatsapp. The obtain data were statistically analyzed by using Pre-requisite Analysis and Hypothesis testing. The result of normality test was 0.283 for reading interest and 0.398 for reading comprehension and the result of homogeneity test was 0.168. The next analysis could be done by using Pearson product-moment correlation and Ttest. Based on the finding, it was found that correlation coefficient obtained is 0.617. It shows that there is a positive and high correlation between reading interest and reading comprehension. In addition, the results revealed the alternative hypothesis was accepted. In conclusion, there is significant correlation between reading interest and reading comprehension of the eighth-grade students of SMPN 1 Sukawati in academic year 2021/2022